European Football Championship: Debacle for defending champion Italy: Out against Switzerland

Berlin – Team manager Gianluigi Buffon stared into space for minutes, the players of the defeated defending champion apologized to their disappointed fans with expressionless faces. A completely inferior Italy deservedly lost to a strong Swiss team in the European Championship round of 16. In the 0:2 (0:1) defeat in front of 68,172 spectators in Berlin, coach Luciano Spalletti’s team was lucky not to lose by an even greater margin.

Remo Freuler (37th minute) and Augsburg’s Ruben Vargas (46th) decided the match for the German preliminary round opponent, whose players, like their euphoric fans, jumped wildly to the European Championship hit “Freed from Desire” after the final whistle. Switzerland will face the winner of the match between England and Slovakia in the quarter-finals on July 6 in Düsseldorf.

Italy, on the other hand, is heading home. “We lacked the rhythm and freshness that make the difference. We are not in a position to show more than that at the moment,” admitted Italy coach Spaletti after the poor performance and announced a discussion with association president Gabriele Gravina about his future. “The responsibility always lies with the coach, I made the decisions,” said Spaletti.

Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma also spoke plainly. “It hurts to be eliminated like this. The elimination is deserved and the way it happened is difficult to come to terms with. Everything was missing today, the quality, the courage,” said the 25-year-old, adding dejectedly: “We can only apologize to our fans. That is unacceptable, we were bad the whole game. That is the reality, we have to accept it.”

The winners felt very differently. “We put in a great performance again and deserved to advance,” said defensive leader Manuel Akanji. And midfielder Fabien Rieder rejoiced: “We put in an incredible performance as a team. Everyone ran for each other. The mechanisms were great, we worked well together, both defensively and offensively. Now we want to enjoy the victory, but we won’t get euphoric.”

18 years after the 2006 World Cup triumph, the Italians returned to Berlin full of anticipation – and experienced a huge disappointment. The Squadra Azzurra was worse in every respect and deservedly suffered its first defeat against Switzerland in 31 years. There was no sign of the exciting football with which Italy had won the European Championship in 2021 and beat Switzerland 3-0 in the group stage.

Spalletti’s changes fizzle out

For the first time since 2004, Italy failed to make it into the round of the best eight teams at a European Championship and experienced the next low point after missing out on the World Cups in 2018 and 2022. Switzerland impressed as they did in the 1:1 draw against the DFB selection in the group stage and are in the European Championship quarter-finals for the second time in a row. The selection of former Bundesliga professional Murat Yakin earned the victory in front of FIFA President Gianni Infantino and UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin with a concentrated performance.

After the disappointing 1:1 draw against Croatia, Spalletti changed the system again and made numerous changes to the team’s positions. He justified this by saying that he hoped for more offensive power. But his measures did not pay off at all – quite the opposite.

Donnarumma prevents worse

Bad passes, misunderstandings and losing the ball far too quickly characterised the Azzurri’s offensive play, and there was hardly any organised build-up to the game. Switzerland dominated the game, but made far too little use of the helplessness of the deep-lying Italians. Captain Donnarumma made a strong save (24′) from a shot by Breel Embolo after a pass from Leverkusen’s Granit Xhaka. As in the tournament so far, the keeper was once again a reliable support and repeatedly encouraged his teammates with plenty of gestures.

The 25-year-old was still there when Freuler’s shot was deflected a good ten minutes later, but was unable to prevent the deficit. Donnarumma then just managed to deflect a free kick from Rieder (45.+1) onto the post. Spalletti, helpless, put his hands on his hips on the sidelines and watched the action motionless.

Setback after the break

Spalletti made a substitution at half-time, but things didn’t get any better for Italy after that. 27 seconds after the restart, Vargas was hardly challenged in front of goal and shot beautifully from the edge of the penalty area into the top right corner of the goal. The Swiss only had to tremble briefly when Fabian Schär’s header hit the post of his own goal (52′) and Gianluca Scamacca’s shot hit the post (74′). The Italians now had more possession of the ball, but were far from scoring a goal.